The men who have led Ireland
for twenty-five years have done evil, and they are bankrupt. They are bankrupt
in policy, bankrupt in credit, bankrupt now even in words. They have nothing to
propose to Ireland, no way of wisdom, no counsel of courage. When they speak
they speak only untruth and blasphemy. Their utterances are no longer the
utterances of men. They are the mumblings and the gibberings of lost souls. A quote from the writings of P.H. Pearse that
has resonance still.
With one greedy grasping fist this government - as did the last - takes from the young, the
old, the needy, the most vulnerable, from those of us huddled in the middle;
with the other feeble hand it feeds the greed of our new banking masters, the
ECB. The men who have led Ireland have
done evil, and they are bankrupt.
Then, with their mumblings and their gibberish, its ministers, party
members and media apologists try to justify the utterly unjustifiable, impoverishing
their own people while enriching foreign financial investors and institutions through the payment of failed private bank bonds. They
are bankrupt in policy, bankrupt in credit, bankrupt now even in words.
Terrorised and intimidated by the threats – spoken and unspoken – of those
cold new masters, our leaders have poured tens of billions of our money into
the banks to pay failed bonds. They have
nothing to propose to Ireland, no way of wisdom, no counsel of courage.
They then negotiate ‘deals’ which will see our children and our children’s
children pay reparations for decades for that bank debt, reparations for a war
we never fought, and they will present this as triumph. When they speak they speak only untruth and blasphemy, their utterances
are no longer the utterances of men.
Our leaders have been cowed, they have been bullied, they have been
beaten, they have been subjugated, supplicants reduced to pleading and begging.
They have accepted on our behalf a debt that isn’t ours, was never ours, will
never BE ours.
We must now again arise, we the people. Not in arms, not in blood, but in
anger nevertheless. We’re told that the ECB won’t even talk to us, never mind
consider restoring the tens of billions forced from us. The reason? The same
reason they considered themselves able to inflict this burden on us in the
first place – we’re a small nation. Well yes, we are, but when it comes to toppling
empires, we have a bit of history.
To finish, another quote from the same work of Pearse: Ghosts are troublesome things in a house or
in a family, as we knew even before Ibsen taught us. There is only one way to
appease a ghost. You must do the thing it asks you. The ghosts of a nation
sometimes ask very big things; and they must be appeased, whatever the cost.
This Sunday the Ballyhea protest will take place in Charleville, meeting as
per usual at the Library Plaza at 11.30am, week 86. The following Saturday,
however, October 27th, we’re again taking our protest on the road,
heading up west on this occasion. The itinerary outline is as follows:
Charleville: 7.45am, meet at the Library Plaza;
Ennis: 9.15am, meet O’Connell Monument, march O’Connell St;
Galway: 10.45am, meet Bus Station cnr of Eyre Sq, march around the square;
Castlebar: 12.45pm, meet Military barracks just off main roundabout, march Main St;
Sligo: 2.30pm, meet at the end of O'Connell St, march to GPO for 3pm protest;
Donegal town: 4.45pm, meet at the Lidl supermarket carpark, march to The Diamond.
We would appreciate local organisers/support in each of those locations.
Contact us on
Twitter - @ballyhea14;
Facebook – Ballyhea bondholder bailout protest;
Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.
